Seen here are selected items received in 2011, with which Special Collections looks ahead to the next decade of donors.

The Naturalist’s Library was issued as a forty-volume set over a period of ten years. Together it contains over 1300 engraved plates depicting the animals of the world. The volumes are divided into four sections: ornithology (14 volumes), mammalia (13 volumes), entomology (7 volumes), and ichthyology (6 volumes), each of which was composed by a leading naturalist. The Naturalist’s Library was intended for a general audience and did much to popularize zoological knowledge. Most of the plates in this set have been colored by hand.

Christopher Ward was a Delaware lawyer and an author of numerous fictional and historical works. His papers and book collection were among the earliest donations to the University of Delaware Library, which were gifted by his widow in 1947. The Tercentenary Almanac includes a rendering of the “Old College at Newark, Delaware,” now known as Old College Hall.

Often created for tourists or visitors of a city, viewbooks employed a variety of illustration techniques, maps, prints, and photo–reproductions of landmarks and other scenic attractions. This viewbook features panoramic photograph of the French Alps indicating the height of each peak.

Tugby’s Illustrated Guide to Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls, New York, 1885.Gift of Robert and Mae Carter

Thomas Tugby was a thirty–year resident of Niagara Falls and the proprietor of Tugby’s Mammoth Bazaar. The guide features lengthy descriptions of each image, anecdotes, and tips for tourists, including admission fees to local attractions and hotel and transportation information.

Miriam E. Welliver

Travel diary, 1934Gift of Donald H. and Wendelin J. Davis

This travel diary, created by Pennsylvania native Miriam E. Welliver, is a thorough documentation of a 5,100–mile automobile tour through 19 states in the United States and Canada during June and July, 1934. A high point of the trip is a visit to the Century of Progress world fair in Chicago, but the photographs, postcards, botanical specimens, and diary entries from other parts of the trip provide a glimpse of life in 1930s America. The family traveled from Danville, Pennsylvania, south to New Orleans, then north to Chicago and east to Detroit, through Canada, and re–entered the United States through Niagara Falls.

This Dutch resistance publication is an ABC of cartoons condemning the Nazi regime and its crimes. Even a comparatively harmless work such as this constituted a subversive text; its creators literally put their lives at risk in printing and distributing it. Several cartoons foresee the advance of Allied forces across Europe; Dutch liberation would occur the following year.

American author and essayist Guy Davenport (1927—2005) is best known for his short stories in the modernist tradition. In this letter to University of Delaware English professor Steve Helmling, Davenport briefly reflects on nineteenth–century Romantic poets, the purpose of poetry, and his feelings on the current state of the genre.

16th & Mission Comix, San Francisco, 2009Gift of Alan Kaufman

The corner of 16th and Mission Streets in San Francisco is known for its poetry slams and spoken word and musical performances, touting itself “the open mic without the mic.” 16th & Mission scene participants create and contribute to a variety of alternative press publication, such as this issue of the for–adults–only 16th & Mission Comix.

Arthur Rimbaud

Voyelles. Robert Blanchet: [s.l.], 1994.Gift of Karen Venezky

An artist’s book with wood etchings by Robert Blanchet. This copy, which is copy number 45 of 50 printed, is signed by the artist on the colophon.

With Bay area artists and intellectuals including poet Diane DiPrima, American poet and performer Alan Kaufman established the Free University of San Francisco in 2011 in reaction to mounting costs and the privatization of higher education in the United States. The Free University denounces the consumerization and homogenization of education and aspires to restore personal growth and love of learning.